SEMICHORUS I. Darkness has dawned in the East On the noon of time: The death-birds descend to their feast, Let Freedom and Peace flee far To a sunnier strand, And follow Love's folding star! To the Evening land! SEMICHORUS II. The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset's fire: The weak day is dead, But the night is not born; And, like loveliness panting with wild desire, And pants in its beauty and speed with light Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free! To climes where now, veiled by the ardour of day, From waves on which weary noon Between kingless continents, sinless as Eden. Prankt on the sapphire sea. SEMICHORUS I. Through the sunset of hope, Their shadows more clear float by The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe, Burst like morning on dreams, or like Heaven on deatn, Through the walls of our prison; And Greece, which was dead, is arisen! CHORUS. The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam A brighter Hellas rears its mountains A new Peneus rolls its fountains Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep A loftier Argo cleaves the main, And loves, and weeps, and dies. O write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew. Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, And leave, if nought so bright may live, Saturn and Love their long repose Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, O cease! must hate and death return? The world is weary of the past, See Notes at the end of the volume. N EDIPUS TYRANNUS; OR, SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT. A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS, TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DORIC, Choose Reform or Civil War, When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, ADVERTISEMENT. THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays, (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their Dramatic representations,) elucidating the won derful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Bootarchs. The tenderness with which he beats the PIGs proves him to have been a sus Baotic; possibly Epicuri de grege Porcus; for, as the poet observes, "A fellow feeling makes us wond'rous kind." No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remark able piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last act. The word Hoydipouse, (or more properly (Edipus,) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated. Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled, "Swellfoot in Angaria," and " Charité," the Translator might be tempted to give them to the reading Public. CHORUS of the Swinish Multitude.-Guards. Attendants, Priests, &c. &e. SCENE-Thebes. ACT I. SCENE I-A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death'sheads, and tiled with scalps. Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of boars, sows, and sucking-pigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple. Enter SWELLFOOT, in his royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs. Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch [He contemplates himself with satisfaction. (Nor with less toil were their foundations laid,*) The Swine. Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh! Ha! what are ye, Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies, Cling round this sacred shrine? Swine. Aigh! aigh! aigh! Swellfoot. What! ye that are The very beasts that offered at her altar With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards, Ever propitiate her reluctant will When taxes are withheld? Swine. Ugh! ugh! ugh! What! ye who grub Swellfoot. In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides? See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants. Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest THE SWINE.-SEMICHORUS I. If 'twere your kingly will Us wretched swine to kill, What should we yield to thee? Swellfoot. Why skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar. CHORUS OF SWINE. I have heard your Laureate sing, That pity was a royal thing; Under your mighty ancestors, we pigs Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, Or grasshoppers that live on noon-day dew, And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too: But now our sties are fallen in, we catch The Murrain and the mange, the scab and itch; FIRST SOW. My pigs, 'tis in vain to tug ! SECOND SOw. I could almost eat my litter! FIRST PIG. I suck, but no milk will come from the dug. SECOND PIG. Our skin and our bones would be bitter. THE BOARS. We fight for this rag of greasy rug, SEMICHORUS. Happier swine were they than we, I wish that pity would drive out the devils To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons |